Thursday, June 12, 2008

In my previous post a week or two ago, I talked about how the lightning literally fucked with my PC peripherals, TV, and lighting in my house.

Scurrying the Internet, there were two options I could get. One, is a lightning arrestor made by Belkin, and a lighting isolator, made by Cal-Lab.

With suggestions from friends and forumers, it seems that Cal-Lab has a good track record on successfully isolating the surge before it does any damage to any equipments. Belkin on the other hand, seems to have failed doing so according to a few Lowyat.net forumers.

So what is it with Lightning Arrestor and Lightning Isolator? Well, from my understanding, Lightning Arrestor attempts to block and cut off the lightning surge that comes in. However, if the surge is too great to handle, the arrestor would fail and the surge would then jump into the equipments plugged at the socket. A lightning isolator however, does not attempt to arrest/block/shield the incoming surge. Instead it redirects the surge back to the ground, therefore neutralizing the surge before it reaches any equipments plugged.

Knowing this fact, I then purchased two modules for my room. One for the power socket, and the other for the phone line.

Two Modules: The power(MDSC0039) and phone lightning(SP9201DSL) isolator

Up close: SP9201DSL, with 50cent coin for size comparison

Up close 2: MDSC0039, with a 50cent coin for size comparison

Both modules installed: SP9201DSL has a green wire which acts as a ground wire and you must connect it to the MDSC0039.

From the cord extender: MDSC0039 goes here.

From the cord extender --> MDSC0039 --> 4gang socket(1)

4gang socket(1) --> 4gang socket(2)

I do hope this lightning isolator would keep excess surge away from my equipment. But of course if you want to protect your equipments, it is best to plug them off the socket while not using and disconnect the phone line from the modem. This would be the 100% safe solution.